On the 22nd of January in Thessaloniki, on the initiative of the KKE, a Meeting of 10 Communist Workers Parties from 8 Balkan countries was held – from Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, FYROM, Romania, Serbia and Turkey.

This meeting contributed to the exchange of views concerning the situation which has developed in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean, under the conditions of the international capitalist economic crisis, the intensification of imperialist aggression and inter-imperialist contradictions.

The communist and workers parties of the Balkans assess that the real cause of the crisis is to be found in the sharpening of the central contradiction of capitalism, the contradiction between the social character of production and the capitalist appropriation of its results. The people’s problems as a whole are also sharpening, poverty is on the increase, and both relative and absolute destitution embrace a large percentage of the population in the Balkan countries.

The discovery of new energy sources in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean, and the intensity of their exploitation by capital, will not only not bring peace and stability to our region as is claimed by the imperialists and their governments but on the contrary will foster new sharper rivalries. At the same time, the peoples will pay much more for electricity, petrol, natural gas because the rich energy deposits in our region are not the property of the people, but are overrun by the monopolies and by both domestic and foreign business consortia.

The communist and workers parties of the Balkans in these conditions salute the struggles which have been waged in Greece, Romania and elsewhere so that the plutocracy and not the people pay for the capitalist crisis. They also salute the struggles against imperialism, in the defence of working class and popular rights and gains, against nationalism and racism, for the rights of immigrants, which have taken place during the recent period in our region. The Communist and Workers Parties are called upon to be in the front line organizing all these struggles.

The participants in this meeting also stated their readiness to confront and fight against the large-scale propaganda and blackmail of both NATO and the EU. The aim of this propaganda and blackmail is the full accession and complete assimilation of the Balkan countries to the imperialist plans, on the basis of the so-called new “NATO’s New Strategic Concept”, which was recently approved in Lisbon.

Alongside NATO and the EU, the bourgeois classes of the candidate member-states, the NGOs, and the opportunist forces, such as the so-called Party of the European Left, play a leading role in this propaganda aimed at creating illusions.

The accession of the Balkan countries to the EU and NATO, the widening of these two imperialist organization into the Balkans not only will not benefit the peoples or bring them peace and prosperity but quite the opposite. Besides, the peoples of the Balkan and other European countries which are already members have acquired much negative experience and can bear witness that assimilation to NATO and the EU brings the working class and the people poverty and other problems. Of course, at the same time, it ensures even greater profitability and privileges for big capital

The so-called dream of EU and NATO accession which is promoted by the bourgeois classes cannot erase the memory and nostalgia of the Balkan peoples for the socialism which they knew. Indeed, they have irrefutable experience that the people’s problems and needs can be resolved through another form of state-power, without the exploitation of man by man, socialism-despite its weaknesses.

The common desire was expressed at the meeting to strengthen and to increase the joint activities and the coordination of our Parties, as well as the promotion of broader anti-imperialist activity, in the following direction:

* Solidarity to the class-oriented labour struggles, the development of the struggle for the rights of the workers, the youth, women, which have broken out in the Balkans * The strengthening and broadening of the pro-peace, anti-NATO, anti-imperialist movement in the Balkans. * The strengthening of the peoples’ condemnation of anti-communism and the anti-historical identification of communism with fascism, which is promoted by the EU and the bourgeois classes. * The development of solidarity with the peoples in struggle, such as the Palestinian people. And for the liberation of the 5 Cuban revolutionaries from the American prisons and for the abolition of the economic blockade of Cuba.

So that the popular struggle against the imperialist military presence in Balkans be strengthened, against the so-called anti-missile shield, against the foreign bases and armies, against the participation of military forces from the Balkan countries in NATO and EU missions in other countries. So that our countries disentangle themselves from the imperialist plans and organizations.

We demand:

That our countries have no involvement in the new imperialist wars, in the Middle East, in Africa, in the Caucasus and in the threats which are issued against the peoples which struggle against and call into question the imperialist “world order”.

Parties which Participated:

Communist Party of AlbaniaCommunist Party of BulgariaParty of Bulgarian CommunistsCommunist Party of GreeceSocialist Workers’ Party of CroatiaCommunist Party of Macedonia (FYROM)Communist Party of RomaniaNew Communist Party of YugoslaviaCommunist Party of TurkeyLabour Party (EMEP), Turkey